Nepal’s First self manufactured electric motorbike, The Yatri Motorbike (Project Zero)

Earlier this month, Yatri motorcycle unveiled their Nepal First self manufactured electric motorbike, The “Project Zero” as they have named it for now. Yatri Motorcycles, which a Nepali Motorcycle manufacturing company was founded in 2017 by Ashim Pandey. The company comprises of like minded youths who want to bring change in the scene of motorbikes and break the stigma that powerful motorbikes can only be of fossil fuel and not be electric. The “Project Zero” as they have called it was the result of all these like-minded youths putting their effort, knowledge, and all their dedication and energy to create something in their own native country and bring about a positive change among all the youths.

As “Project Zero” is an EV (Electric Vehicle), the bike is environment-friendly. The unveiling of this bike while, Nepal is trying to move towards an environment friendly direction seems to be nothing less from meant to be.  This bike is the company’s first time ever producing a completely functioning motorbike and also Nepal’s first-ever self-produced motorbike as well. The bike is heavily inspired by the classic and well-loved design of “Cafe Racer” bikes. While at design the looks follow the cafe racer model but with the twist of the bike itself having a fusion of futuristic looks that seem to be out of a science fiction movie themselves. All in all, the design is superb but still could use more tinkering, but on the bright side, we can not be sure that the design we are currently seeing will be the ones that will be hitting the markets. As of today, the dates have not been released for the official sale dates of the motorbikes on the Nepalese market as well with future outlooks, even abroad if the motorbike proves that it is of the utmost quality.

 

More on The Yatri Motorbike – Project Zero:

As mentioned above, Nepal has slowly been leaning towards the electric vehicle side like Electric Motercycles & Scooters, as the Nepal government has been very vocal on the matter that they want more electric vehicles on the streets of Nepal, instead of the vehicles that use a lot of fossil fuel. And why is that the Government wants more electric vehicles?, the main reason being the petroleum products cost a lot of money and just importing them into the country itself is a huge investment for a developing and small country like Nepal. But Nepal has many rivers, and lakes, that produce a huge amount of electricity, and as of recently Nepal has been completely load shedding free, which means that the country is not facing anymore long hours of power cuts which were rampant just a few years ago. But with Mr Kulman Ghising ji on the chair of Nepal Electricity Authorization, he has been able to eradicate the load shedding problem and all the general public will always be grateful to his efforts, this shows how much electricity can be produced through our rivers and water sources as well. With all these in mind, having a company like Yatri Motorcycles making such a superb motorbike which not only uses the resources that can be reproduced over and over again in our own country without having to pay hefty amount of import cost, taxes and other costs that not all of us know has to be one of the best news to have come in 2019 for Nepal and the Nepalese public. The government imposes a mere 10% excise duty (for private usage) or a minuscule 1% for public Electric vehicles, while regular non-electric vehicles are subject to up to 240% import tax.

 

It is rather relieving to know that a company like Yatri has emerged in our country that not only utilizes the electricity that is produced in our own country but also there will always be a different sense of pride to own one of these motorbikes, knowing that the motorbike was made, designed, produced, manufactured and most of all, uses the resources that the country can produce on its own without having to go to other countries and pay hefty amount of import costs that can be used to develop other underdeveloped parts of the country. The entire bike is made in Nepal but a few parts are imported as the parts are very complex to create or even manufacture in our country itself, the parts such as: “Brembo brakes“, “Metzler tires” are only a few of those parts. There are most probably other parts as well, that we will know more about after the complete release of the bike into the Nepalese market.

What are Yatri Motorbike (Project Zero) specifications, what’s it made of, what to expect, let us talk about that as well: 

Let us get to the specifications, the costing and what else to expect of this motorbike. The motorbike, by no means is going to be an economical electric motorbike with all the compromises that you can see and feel in other similar kinds of motorbikes. The electric vehicle that Yatri Motorcycles will be selling is going to be premium class motorbikes, even though the bike is going to be an electric vehicle, the fact that the team behind the motorbike want to provide its customers with a premium experience is something that is highly appreciated. This premium and elegant electric vehicle are going to most probably going to be costing more than the electric vehicles that you can see on the streets, as they experience it is trying to provide is no less than the premium bikes in the market itself. The bike is majorly comprised of carbon fibre instead of metal, which is lighter and comparatively stronger. Though the cost of the carbon fibre is rather higher than that of the metal sheets. “Through this elegant design, we aim to reach not only the environmentalists but ultimately those who care about owning an inspiring product”, said one of the team members of Yatri Motorbikes during the unveiling of the bike.

Specifications for the motorbike that you will be getting in the Project Zero are: A powerful 30kW motor which will give a whooping 42BHP (Brake Horse Power) which is nearly similar to the premium bikes that you can see in the market nowadays, coupled with 120NM torque, and the bike has a top speed of 120 km/hr.

The battery that comes in the motorbike is itself very impressive, the battery can run for 230km while being fully charged. And for the battery to be fully charged it only takes 2 hours, this time might change as all the specifications are not so sure, and few tweaks and changes might be done to the final product when sold to the general public. The bike also has a 7-inches Full HD display that allows the bike owner to access the company’s very own application “Yatri Hub app“. The application can display the speed of the bike, GPS, and will even show you how much money you are saving by having switched to an Electric vehicle.

About the availability of the motorbike itself, Yatri have not released when the bike will be completely released to the general public but they are planning for the bike to be open for testing by March 2020 and as for the cost as we said earlier the bike will be costing significantly more than those electric vehicles on the streets, which is our estimation of nearly 3 lakhs Rupees, but thats only an estimation and it can be significantly more or even less than estimated, but it will likely be less costly than the premium bikes that use petrol or other fossil fuels. In this time and era, we give kudos to the Yatri Motorcycles to have come with such innovative idea to make use of the resources we have that can be reproduced over and over again. To a better future that is environment friendly. We hope that the Project Zero goes beyond our expectations and you can be sure, we will have a review on the bike when the bike is out for test drives. See more on their official website here.